According to Gautam Hazarika, author of The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II, the first Indian National Army (INA) was formed under Captain Mohan Singh in late 1941 and 1942, before Subhas Chandra Bose reached Singapore in July 1943. Bose then took over the movement and expanded it. Hazarika makes this case in an interview with Naresh Fernandes for Scroll. It is his account of the origins, not a finding that scholars have settled, and the reporting I could check does not include archival records that independently confirm it.
Two founders, two stages
Most popular accounts name Bose as the founder of the INA. Hazarika’s argument separates the movement into two stages. The first belongs to Mohan Singh, an officer of the 1/14 Punjab Regiment who was among the Indian troops captured in the early Japanese campaign. The second belongs to Bose, who arrived later and gave the organisation its wider reach. Readers who want a short answer can use the table below, which sets out the sequence as the interview describes it.
The sequence as the interview describes it
| Date | Event | Who is credited |
|---|---|---|
| 7 December 1941 | Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which the interview treats as the start of the war in Asia | Japanese forces |
| 8 December 1941 (local time) | Japanese invasion of Malaya | Japanese forces |
| 15 December 1941 | Singh meets Japanese forces and is selected to head the INA, according to the account | Mohan Singh |
| Late 1941 to 1942 | Singh recruits most of the force’s men | Mohan Singh |
| 29 December 1942 | Singh is arrested; the INA is disbanded after his arrest, according to the interview | Japanese authorities (arrest); not stated for the disbandment decision |
| July 1943 | Bose arrives in Singapore and takes the movement to greater strength | Subhas Chandra Bose |
Mohan Singh’s first INA
Recruitment and the break with Japan
According to the interview, Singh recruited most of the men who formed the first INA. He stopped cooperating with the Japanese when he concluded they were not serious about arming Indian troops to invade India. The interview presents this as the point of rupture. It does not present Singh’s decision as a simple act of defiance, and it does not describe the internal debates among the Japanese command.
Loyalty, arrest and disbandment
The interview says the men had sworn personal loyalty to Singh, and that he had arranged for the INA to be disbanded if he was removed. After his arrest on 29 December 1942, the organisation was disbanded. This detail matters for the founder question because it means the first INA ended before Bose arrived. Hazarika’s reading is that Bose’s later movement was a different phase, not a continuation under the same leadership.
Bose’s role as described
Hazarika says Bose arrived in Singapore in July 1943 and then took the movement to greater heights. The interview treats him as the leader who built the INA into a larger force, not as the person who first set it up. Historians of the period also discuss Rash Behari Bose, who led the Indian Independence League in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. The interview summarised here does not weigh his role against Mohan Singh’s, so readers should treat that comparison as open.
Hazarika’s claim about the INA’s origins
In an email interview, Hazarika put the point in direct terms: “Contrary to popular belief, the INA was not founded by Netaji, but 18 months before he even arrived in Singapore.” He also attributes the movement’s roots to a different source: “It was fostered by a pre-war alliance between Japanese Army Intelligence and Indian nationalists outside India.” Both sentences are his. Quote them as his position rather than as established fact.
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About the book
The interview concerns Hazarika’s The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II: The Untold Story of INA Soldiers, Subhas Chandra Bose, Singapore 1942, Burma Campaign, and Indian POWs Who Shaped Independence, published by Penguin India. Hazarika told Scroll that he started the research after buying a manuscript written by civilian internees in Changi prison. The book is the source of the founder argument, so its evidence base matters more than its framing. Readers who want to check the claims should start with the book’s notes and bibliography, then compare them with archival holdings and specialist scholarship on the INA’s formation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How far the claim can be trusted
The account rests on Hazarika’s own reading, as reported in one interview. The reporting I reviewed did not include independent official records, court documents or peer-reviewed histories that test the founder question directly. The sequence in the table is therefore best read as the book’s chronology, not as a settled timeline. The strongest reason to take the argument seriously is that it gives a specific date, a specific person and a specific reason for the break, which makes it checkable.
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For a reader who wants to test the argument, the most useful sources are Japanese and British wartime records of the Singapore period, Indian National Army files held in Indian and Singaporean archives, and published histories that address Mohan Singh and Rash Behari Bose directly. Until those are consulted, the honest answer to “who founded the INA” is that the first version was led by Mohan Singh, and the movement most people associate with Bose was a later phase.
The interview also does not give a total figure for the men who served in the first INA, so any number you see in summaries should be checked against the source it cites.
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- Reference Book
- Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War & the Fate of Empire in British North America 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson Vintage U1
- Slight wear.
If you watch or read documentaries on the INA, the question of who started it is worth asking of each one: which phase it covers, and which records it draws on.
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